Yeah I remember all those lectures about over reaction and we ended up with an insurrection and an entire half of our country convinced an election was stolen.
> [snark]Almost lost the Republic on Jan 6th to a whole lot of shoving.[/snark]
Snark aside, the danger of Jan 6 was not shoving - It was people deciding to do the wrong thing in the name of gaining power.
The insurrectionists who organized January 6 (yes it was planned) were at the Willard Hotel in a number of suites they called a "War Room" (yes, their words). The entire plan was to delay certification of Joe Biden's victory to give state legislatures time to arrange an alternate slate of electors to be sent to the Capitol. This delay was achieved via a violent mob directed at the Capitol. A delay happened by it wasn't long enough, so the effort failed.
But it almost succeeded. They wanted to push Pence in the direction of refusing to certify Biden's 2020 win, thereby kicking the decision to state delegates, of which Republicans controlled a majority. Obviously they would have voted for Trump over Biden.
This is how autocracy happens in America: a president who loses both the popular vote and electoral college, appointed by a political party on the basis of fraudulent claims of fraud. No elections will be trusted by either side after that happens.
I’m sorry but I chuckled a bit. In my last company our corporate legal used to ask us not to call our conference room the “war room” - it might imply anticompetitive actions. I rolled my eyes but apparently I was wrong in thinking that was a ridiculous statement.
And the fact that the Democrats argued that Trumps 2016 election and Bush’s election was “suspect” if not “fradulent” doesn’t do much to bolster your argument.
> No elections will be trusted by either side after that happens.
This is the Democrats fault. Their shoe-in candidate lost and they spent four years bleating that Trump was illegitimate and failed to prove it with a far reaching investigation. _That_ is where trust started to be lost.
The Muller report and Senate Report on Russian Active Measures (I posted links earlier, but you've already read them I assume: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29080495) show that Trump and Russians coordinated efforts, made secret deals, delivered on quid pro quo arrangements, and yes even shared information during the 2016 election. And they lied about it all, destroyed evidence, and obstructed the investigations into their activity. You can characterize objections to such behavior as "bleating", but it doesn't change the fact that the Trump campaign worked with Russian intelligence as they hacked the DNC. There is still no explanation for Trump's campaign manager handing internal campaign data to a Russian intelligence officer, other than collusion.
There's no theory presented here, just a list of things that happened according to the Special Counsel and Congress. There's no mystery about what went on, and yeah, it's also clear that no one cares. Because that's the world we live in now, and I'm okay with that. But let's just be clear about where we are right now: a campaign for President coordinated with a foreign power as that power was hacking the campaign's opponent in the election, and they lied about it to everyone. That's okay behavior now, because as you said, the FBI did nothing. The Attorney General read the report I linked to and concluded the behavior was perfectly normal. But that doesn't make the charges of Russian collusion a "lie", as some have spun the results of those investigations. If Trump's campaign handing internal campaign data to Russian intelligence officers isn't collusion, the word has lost all meaning.
I mean, this isn't even the product of some partisan hit job on Trump. This is the result of two Republican-led investigations. One, led by a fmr Republican FBI director appointed by a Republican deputy AG, who in turn was appointed by Trump himself; the other written by the Republican majority and chaired Senate Intel committee. It's really easy to dismiss this as a "conspiracy theory" or "witch hunt" as the then President tried very hard to call it, but Republicans and Democrats both agree on the facts in these reports. They are not lies. They are not conspiracy theories. And yes, they are also a nothing-burger, because the behavior is now normalized. That's how presidential campaigns will be run from here on out basically thanks to this whole issue, and no one should be surprised when Democrats do it.
I have to agree. They didn't explicitly lie like Trump did/does, but they (or at least, Hilary specifically) did repeatedly mention that they "won the popular vote" as if it was relevant - they wanted to imply the same thing, that Trumps presidency was unfair if not illegitimate.
I would hazard to bet that most of those people involved in the insurrection only did so because of the number of violent protests that were met with underreaction in the previous year.
Still, america is a nation of extremes, and if something doesn't go their way they're all very quick to jump to "its a conspiracy against us" conclusion. A union bound together by nothing is doomed to fall apart from the slightest push.
The previous election was also accused to be stolen. If you look at tweets, both parties had complete trust in election integrity when it fitted their narrative and it was a complete fraud when it was convenient.
Do you remember the Russian hackers?
Given how crappy USA election practices are (no voter IDs? mail ballot? workers counting ballots without witnesses?) I'm pretty sure there were instances of election fraud in both cases, it's just hard to establish how much it affected the result.
It's a shame that the parties don't think ahead. When one party pushes for better election practices, the other should roll over, because next election it will benefit them and this election it won't matter.
That is extremely hypocritical as the never-Trumpers claimed for 4 years Trump was an illegitimate President and continue to do so even after a multi-year investigation failed to prove any claim to that effect was true.
